


the boat that would row you back carefully

by RedHorse



Series: Tomarry/Harrymort prompt fills [8]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Dimension Travel, M/M, POV Tom Riddle, Same Age Harry & Tom, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-16 13:46:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18522778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedHorse/pseuds/RedHorse
Summary: A boy he’d never seen before sat cross-legged in front of him. He had round spectacles which were broken in the center, and his pyjamas were odd and very bright-colored. They were also too big for him, which didn’t surprise Tom. Children were always wearing things which were too big or too small for them at Wool’s.





	the boat that would row you back carefully

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bloop18](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloop18/gifts).



> The title is a line from Margaret Atwood’s spectacular “Variation on the Word Sleep”.
> 
> (I hope you enjoy this story, but if not I still highly recommend the poem ❤️)
> 
> Thanks to Cybrid for the beta!

Tom was born with a circle on his arm, and when he turned five, a triangle appeared there, too. It happened late in the night, and it was only there a moment before Tom fell asleep in his cot at Wool’s. He thought he’d imagined it.

When he woke, he was on a cold patch of dead grass in front of a strange house.

A boy he’d never seen before sat cross-legged in front of him. He had round spectacles which were broken in the center, and his pyjamas were odd and very bright-colored. They were also too big for him, which didn’t surprise Tom. Children were always wearing things which were too big or too small for them at Wool’s.

There was a strange shiny automobile on the paved drive. “What year is it?” Tom asked the boy.

“I don’t know,” said the boy. “Why are you sleeping on my Uncle’s lawn?”

“What do you mean, you don’t know the year?” Tom demanded. For some reason, someone not knowing the year was the most surprising part about the last five minutes.

The boy shrugged. “Aren’t you cold?”

Tom shrugged also.

“If my Uncle sees you, he’ll yell,” said the boy, and then looked past Tom and blinked at whatever he saw. “Hullo, Mrs. Figg.”

Tom craned his head around and found a very strange-looking woman standing unspeaking behind them, holding a cat and a newspaper. There Tom saw it, on the corner of the back page: January 1, 1985. Just as he’d suspected; time travel was among his powers.

****

Tom quite liked the future. There was gloriously sweet food, and while the quiet lady Mrs. Figg had a strange house with a suspicious smell, it was cozy-warm even with no fire. She didn’t bother him about his table manners or stop him from eating all that he wanted. He saw her looking thoughtfully at his arm, and Tom, recalling the new mark there, held it up and looked at it too.

“That just showed up there today,” explained Tom, running his finger thoughtfully over the three lines of the triangle.

“That’s Harry’s triangle,” said the lady. “Did he see?”

“Who’s Harry?”

“I’ll need to call Headmaster Dumbledore,” fretted Mrs. Figg. Doing that involved a fireplace and a lot of blue smoke. The future was very interesting.

****

At breakfast on their first day at Hogwarts, Tom sat down next to Harry and all the surrounding heads turned in surprise. Further down the table where the older children sat, the reaction was more like pure shock.

“You’re supposed to sit over there,” hissed the ginger one who had been clinging to Harry since the train. He pointed toward the Slytherin table, where there were plenty of curious looks their way also.

“Oh?” Tom asked, meeting the boy’s eye with a cool look, pleased when he flushed and looked down at his plate. “Very well, then. Harry, come with me.”

Harry slid off the bench and smiled apologetically at the ginger boy. “Sorry, but we did promise we’d always sit together at school.”

****

Dumbledore and McGonagall watched Tom very closely. Tom didn’t mind. He had plenty of talents for them to admire.

****

Tom was motivated by two things: firstly, the responsibility he had to his own superiority, and the need to demonstrate that superiority to anyone who dared to question it; secondly, protecting Harry, which had always been a huge hassle (unnamed and undead dark lords, and their vengeance, etc.). Tom constantly wondered whether Harry was worth it. But then he had their marks on his arm to prove it.

Only Tom, Dumbledore and Mrs. Figg knew the marks were there. They stayed safely covered by the Charmed fabric most people wore over that part of their arms.

Harry’s arm, Tom knew, had only a triangle. Though sometimes the thought of this imbalance made something in Tom’s mind feel itchy, for the most part it didn’t concern him. It made sense because while Harry certainly belonged to Tom, Tom belonged only to himself.

****

In their fourth year, between ensuring Harry didn’t die in that ridiculous tournament and avoiding eye contact during long, one-sided conversations with Dumbledore (enduring lots of pointed remarks about the philosophies of alternative dimensions and the power of reciprocal soulmarks) the itch in Tom’s mind grew stronger.

Boys were always talking about girls. Or other boys. Tom knew himself well enough that he chose Draco Malfoy instead of Daphne Greengrass to corner in the common room one evening and press himself against.

Disgusting. He’d leave Harry to it if he wanted to try it.

****

In fifth year, dragged into a battle none of them had any business involving themselves with, Tom happened to catch sight of the hypnotizing, skeletal figure of the nameless lord from across the Ministry lobby. The red, reptilian eyes went comically wide, and the fearsome dark lord Disapparated and was not heard from again.

Tom, who had been crafting a deadly collection of complicated spellwork since he was eleven, was satisfied to know his prowess was so obvious that such a great wizard would know on sight that Tom was his superior.

****

When Harry began going around with the Weasley girl, the itch came back. But it was satisfied, Tom thought, by Harry’s promise that he would always love Tom best. Just for good measure, Tom seized Harry by the collar and pressed their mouths together. No, still disgusting. Let Harry and the Weasley girl suffer one another.

****

A few years later and a few days before Harry was supposed to get married, the itching was worse. They were across from one another at a pub and Harry was bemoaning the fact that he and the girl didn’t have matching marks. He unrolled his sleeve and pointed accusingly at the skin there.

Tom hadn’t seen Harry’s arm since they were children and Mrs. Figg had thought to suggest Harry keep it covered. Tom had never questioned that Harry’s triangle would still be there, familiar from Tom’s own arm. But he had never fathomed that Tom’s circle would be there too.

“It showed up last night,” Harry moaned, leaning forward to rest his forehead on his arms. “Why is this happening to me?”

Nothing out of the ordinary had happened the night before. They fell asleep on the sofa watching one of Harry’s Muggle programs. Harry must have, at some point, Levitated Tom into bed.

****

When Harry walked in on Tom in the Auror showers, it was a year later. Harry was so startled he dropped his towel. Coincidentally while Harry stared at Tom’s arm, Tom stared at Harry’s entire body, which he knew about in theory—small pieces, particular sensations—but which had a different effect when observed in its entirety.

****

“It doesn’t have to mean romance,” Harry said, because he was such a dense moron. Also, he talked too much. Since the shower Tom hadn’t had much to say at all; he was busy considering the implications of how the moment resonated. Harry’s flushed skin, all the places the bones protruded, the pattern of hair on his chest and the way his body was made of a few elegant lines, stretched together into a pleasing shape that seemed designed for Tom’s eye.

“They mean all kinds of things. There are lots of books on it. We shouldn’t try to force anything.”

Tom leaned toward Harry, and thankfully Harry stopped speaking. This time the kiss was different. Nothing like the terrible, desperate wetness he remembered from Malfoy at fourteen or the dry, loose press of Harry’s kiss at sixteen.

Harry’s hand reached out automatically to cup Tom’s jaw, which was nicer even than the tentative brush of lips. Harry’s lower lip felt firm and full. His hair was silky under Tom’s hand. Everything about him had always seemed too familiar for this kind of thing to be interesting, but Tom found that in this fresh context, Harry had suddenly become someone strange and new.

And so, Tom realized with slowly-dawning horror, had Tom.


End file.
